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He wasn’t technically fighting the ward, he was doing a whole lot better and being fucking ingenious about it—bypassing it by invoking an older authority.

It was brilliant, risky, and rather unhinged—just like the infuriatingly alluring man himself.

I saw him manage to work the ancient commands to allow his hand to pass through the ward without causing a disruption that would trigger an alert and notify the Unity Council that there was a security breach. Even with it being the dead of night and a couple of hours before the place was open, any security issue would immediately alert them and given that they were supernatural beings, they could be here in seconds.

Kai was just a mere inch away from grasping the scroll, where I knew the plan was then for him to take a trace magical essence from it so that he could create an identical copy using his magic and a couple of drops of Ariana’s blood.

But then something unexpected happened.

Something that sent a chill down my spine.

Kai was crying out in the next second as white smoke suddenly started swirling around the scroll, another spell or something activating as it felt his closeness.

In seconds, it was wrapping around his hand, then traveling up his arm and jerking him closer.

Trapping him.

He hissed, and I peered closer with my dragon vision to see it melting right through his leather trench coat, exposing his skin beneath, then burning through that as well, his flesh becoming red-raw in moments.

He tried to pull back, and even shocked it with his magic, but it didn’t respond at all to his efforts.

It was beyond evenhismagic then?

“What the shit is that?” Nyx cried, starting forward.

Kai held up his free hand behind him. “Stay back. This is… it’s dangerous. It shouldn’t be here.”

“What is it?”

Kai hissed as the burning worsened. “Not sure… yet.” I saw his magic surge, but it did absolutely nothing. His eyes shot wide, and then he expressed actual fear.

Kai Hunter had no clue what the fuck to do.

It shouldn’t be possible with his massive, extensive knowledge base. I mean, he’d just been able to employ ancient magic that very few magic-wielders with years of more experience than him knew how to do.

Something was seriously wrong here.

My instincts screamed at me.

Pushing me to act.

I knew it in my bones then as I took in Kai’s predicament, him being imprisoned, completely unable to escape, and being damaged in the process. There was somethingIcould do.

I couldn’t explain it.

I didn’t know exactly what it was.

But something deep within me roared with the assurance that Iwouldknow when I was within range, when I was touching… whatever the hell that was.

As Kai and Nyx started arguing, with Kai insisting that he leave, so that at least he wasn’t implicated, telling him to warn Ariana to get gone, too, I burst across the distance with my dragon speed, then dematerialized in a red cloud of teleportation just before I hit the doors.

I rematerialized right beside Nyx in the very next second.

The moment he saw me, he quickly covered me with his shadow magic.

Thankfully, it all happened fast enough and smoothly enough without any security measures having the time to be triggered.

“Damn, what are you doing here?” Nyx breathed, straining at having to hold me now also, and with Kai stuck he was already extending that as it was.